Desistance and young people

Quotes from current service users
“The case manager encourages me, supports me and would do anything for me. I know I
can call on her and she’ll be there for me – I trust her completely. She has helped me find
a course, sorted out a worker to help me with my drug taking and got me to think about my
crimes.” (Cwm Taf YOT)
“My worker is someone I trust totally, I can tell her anything and I know that she will listen,
she has done so much for me.” (Darlington YOT)
“We talk about every single thing. I can talk to my case manager about anything. The best
thing about her though is that she makes me feel sort of comfortable. Like, it wasn’t like I
had to be there. I actually enjoy learning with her.”
Examples of notable practice: building positive relationships
The case manager had a realistic appraisal of her professional relationship with the young person and
acknowledged that there was still a level of mistrust. Importantly, even though she had known the young
person for some time, she saw building rapport as something they continually had to work on.
(Leicester City YOT)
The case manager recognised that Anita really did not want to come to the YOT. They were both aware,
however, that Anita had a good relationship with the YOT nurse. As a result, the case manager tried to
facilitate as much of the work as possible through her. This included work to address sexual health which
was a clear vulnerability concern. The outcome was that Anita was able to be more open with the case
manager. (Darlington YOT)
3.4. Inspectors also found examples of practice which clearly undermined the development of purposeful
relationships and any prospect of effective work. Regrettably, (albeit in a very limited number of
cases) pejorative and negative labels had been attached to children and young people, who were
characterised as being “unlikeable”, “a strange individual” or even “feral”. It was not surprising to
find that in those cases engagement and compliance was poor.
3.5. We discovered in a few cases a tendency to deal with 16 and 17 year olds more as adults than
children. The emphasis in these cases was on providing consistent messages about compliance,
the individual child or young person’s supervision requirements, and their responsibility to keep
appointments. One inspector characterised the relationship in such cases as “functional”.
3.6. It was notable that, even in cases where we found positive working relationships had been
established, assessment and planning for engagement simply did not feature. It may be that this
aspect of work with children and young people was regarded as either too obvious or basic to
include in formal assessments or planning. The failure to collate and analyse previous knowledge of
what had/had not been successful in engaging the child or young person, or to understand what the
barriers to engagement had been, were important shortcomings. This was particularly true for those
cases where there had been previous compliance or enforcement concerns.
3.7. There were several examples of positive collaborative working. In particular there was extensive use
of self-assessments, including the ‘What Do You Think’ (WDYT), and learning styles questionnaires.
The inspection revealed that some form of self-assessment had been completed in approximately
four-fifths of the cases examined. In the best examples, we saw that these documents had been
clearly referenced, followed through and evidenced in assessments, intervention plans and the
delivery of work with children and young people.
Desistance and young people
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